Kilmington Vs Venturers, Saturday April 26th

Kilmington 160-8, Venturers 49

We assembled an eleven with some difficulty, because of the unpromising weather forecast, and arrived at Kilmington in a very heavy shower. The parking area, at the end of the field, was so soft that Simon was worried that his car, laden with five cricketers and some kit, would sink. The pitch, however, was covered and dry, but the rest of the square was so wet that it couldn’t be used. However, Kilmington have a good artificial pitch and after a delay while the boundaries were re-drawn, we were able to start around half an hour late. One boundary was rather short and the opposite one rather long, and we agreed to play 30 overs to allow us a chance of finishing before dark even if there were further interruptions.

We needn’t have worried. There were no further interruptions and we lost with plenty of time to spare. After Kilmington had won the toss and batted, nothing special happened for a while. Chris, from the start, and Douglas, after a few sighters, bowled tidily. Chris cleaned up one opener and Douglas won an LBW decision against the other. We withdrew the appeal, though, when we became (most of us) convinced that he had hit it. This was the first of several such incidents in this match. The next came when Paul thought, possibly correctly, that he had brought off a stumping off Gregory, but the batsman holed out next ball anyway. Gregory was mostly economical and Matt entirely economical and between then the ensured that Chris’s and Douglas’s good work did not go to waste yet. Perhaps they did too well, because the five wickets they got between them got us down to number 9, where Kilmington sent in the 1st XI batsman they happened to have with them. He didn’t cause complete havoc but he did exploit the short boundary far better than anybody else, and took them up to 160.

We thought we had a chance of making those, but we had reckoned without our own batting. John fished aimlessly outside off. The wicketkeeper dropped it, so it was left to Paul to start the slide. He played across the line of a straight ball and lost his middle stump, which was entirely sensible by comparison with what followed. John was leg before, quite far forward but a straight ball is still a straight ball. Chris and Manoj resisted for a bit, scoring slowly in irresponsible singles, until Chris was well caught at the wicket off the slow bowler who had come on. The next ball was described by the Kilmington side as “a Gregory special”, a flighted and rather overpitched straight ball. Harsh swung massively, missed and walked off, saying “he isn’t turning it at all!”, which may have been true but wasn’t quite the point.

Neil negotiated the hat-trick ball and then wandered vaguely off, looking for wild garlic, his reading glasses or the yeti. The wicket-keeper removed the bails and appealed. Since Neil was out of his ground he was, technically, out, and since whatever he was looking for it certainly wasn’t a run, he was out stumped. The bowler therefore had his hat-trick, but in a way so embarrassing and inappropriate to a friendly match that it couldn’t possibly stand. If it had stood, Gregory might have regretted having merely warned the wicket-keeper for backing up too soon when batting, rather than Mankading him outright. Kilmington withdrew the appeal, assuring the disappointed bowler that he would be allowed to buy the beer anyway, and the match proceeded. Not for long, though. Only Manoj showed the slightest sign of a defence. We hit exactly one boundary: that, Manoj’s resistance, Douglas’s survival thanks to the third withdrawn appeal of the match, and a generous supply of extras, got us almost to fifty, but not quite.